Enemies of UX (and how to defeat them)...Agenda Three Enemies of UX [email protected] +30 (303) 030-3030 How the University will defeat them 1 2 3 Intro 4 Questions #OneWebFestival
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Enemies of UX (and how to defeat them) Lee Duddell & Chris Lockhart
180 second introduction to UserZoom(Marketing made me use these slides)
Leading Brands
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The world’s leading brands conduct agile usability testing, measure user experience and monitor customer feedback with UserZoom. Seen a lot of research problems, can help.
UserZoom is your one-stop-shop for UX research
Intuitive UX research platformNewly redesigned UI is feature-rich yet easy-to-use, so you can make UX research part of your agile sprints
Access the right study participantsRecruit the most relevant representative users quickly, through several flexible recruiting optionsGet fast, measurable insightsAutomate the collection of data and uncover valuable insights quickly, with the right UX research method for your needs
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We’re 3 things….1. Software platform / 2. Recruitment service / 3. Professional Services
Us
Lee Duddell
UX Director, 10 years working in UX research
Chris Lockhart
Web Content Lead, University of Southampton
“I got enemies, got a lot of enemiesGot a lot of people tryna drain me of my
energyThey tryna take the wave from a UXer
[expletives]”
Drake
#OneWebFestival
What do we mean by UX?
A ‘Good UX’ is desirable since it means that a site or app meets users’ expectations, is easy to use and meets the organisation’s goals.
It is NOT about making things “pretty”.
This site is not “pretty” but it does well because it has a great UX
Chris, over to you…How you are planning to defeat these
enemies of UX…
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OK, let’s go through these one by OneWeb… It gets better!
Enemy #3 HiPPOs: The Authority Bias
#OneWebFestival
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It’s not a V-C, director or Head of Department level thing – The risk of authority bias can crop up in any situation if there is someone more senior than the rest of the group. HiPPOs are important people, they might be the ones leading teams setting strategy backing initiatives (we wouldn’t be where we are today without the relentless work of numerous senor HiPPOs) sharing insight and experience But to rapidly improve our user experience we need to be led by data, not opinion.
Enemy #3 HiPPOs: What user experience data?
Examples:Insights from Google Analytics Results from researchBehaviour from observationsValidated surveys
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And what data can’t we ignore? User experience data can be simplified into 2 types: Anything that helps find user needs, or helps validate them if they started as assumption or opinion Anything that results from testing user needs are met, such as task completion.
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels
Enemy #3 HiPPOs: What user experience data?
#OneWebFestival
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It’s no good having data if you don’t use it. To make sure we focus on the data: We encourage open conversations with subject matter experts (sometimes this is a HiPPO) We encourage constructive discussion in the sprint team (we’re a passionate bunch) But most of all we ask “Why?” And usually who, what, where, when just to be sure.
#OneWebFestival
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Oh, and the HiPPO Authority Bias isn’t the only bias… here’s a whole bunch of them! My favourite bias name is Bike-Shedding effect, but that’s probably due to the Humour Effect. (Cognitive Bias Codex: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Cognitive_bias_codex_en.svg)
Enemy #2 Asking
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A positive example of a bad situation neatly averted. (Image courtesy of mirror.co.uk)
Enemy #2 Asking: How to avoid asking users what they want
Design a thing based on user needs Test the prototype/concept with usersWatch what they doMake changes to improve task completion Retest (if problem was catastrophic) or launch Launch and monitor performance with real visitors
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The best way to avoid asking is not to ask.
Enemy #1 Agile
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This is a Pronghorn, Google says this is one of the most agile animals on Earth. Photo credit Norm Erikson via Flikr.
Enemy #1 Agile: It will slow us down
#OneWebFestival
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This is Padma Gillen, who Google says is an expert in agile content production. OneWeb is an opportunity to create a lean process with UX built in to the workflow. This was us drafting the workflow. Knowing the pitfalls of not testing UX and it becoming an inconvenient afterthought, we designed it into our workflow so we’re forced to consider the time testing will take when we plan our sprints. This helps state to everyone involved that testing is an important task and worth the time invested. As with the risks of influence from HiPPOs, we need to avoid: assumption bias Testing with users is a massive learning opportunity.
Enemy #1 Agile: It will slow us down
Sprint 0 Preparation: User needs / Analytics / SEO / Research / Source material review / Contact with SMEs / Marketing / Compliance Sprint 1Workflow stages: Draft / 2i / Amends / Build tests / Sprint 2Workflow stages: Launch test / Insights analysis / Amends Sprint 3Workflow stages: Fact check with SMESprint 4Workflow stages: Amends / final 2i / publish MVP
Future sprintsTesting in live environment / Performance analysis
Example: following a task through our (simplified) workflow
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In our OneWeb transformation, Agile UX will look something like this (simplified for presentation purposes – the full version includes systems development and scaling up production): Our UX’ers will be involved from the start, in most sprints except fact checking with SMEs. This will help us stop from finding problems too late. We’ll also be able to refine what we know about our users and refine and validate user needs.
“The definition of “done” can only be determined by users.”
“… if you have data that says users can’t use it or don’t like it, as a UX team member you must continue to underscore user experience problems.” - Jon Innes
Enemy #1 Agile: It will slow us down
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I love this quote from Jon Innes. “The definition of “done” can only be determined by users.” This is important because a focus of agile is delivering something that works. There’s no point creating something quickly if it’s not fit for purpose. (photo credit Paul Joseph via Flikr)
Enemy #1 Agile: We can’t get users fast enough
#OneWebFestival
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We can. Working with UserZoom we can recruit any number of participants and can start getting results from participants in hours. If we want to recruit a very targeted group of participants, say for example international students living in the UK who want to study a business masters degree, part-time, then we may need to allow an extra day to source people but even so, this is quick and can allow us to test quickly. UserZoom helped us set up participant profiles within their recruitment panels so we know there are guaranteed numbers of people that we can call on to take part in our research. Oh, and, participants, they’re everywhere! In certain circumstances, such as testing a rough sketch journey for booking an open day, we can recruit students on campus. Though we’d want to test ideally with users at the correct stage of the application journey. We can also recruit our own participants from our own networks. (Image University of Southampton Special Collections)
Enemy #1 Agile: We can’t get users fast enough
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Just last week, we wanted to test if users could find related courses using the new course page we’ve been working on. My team built a Think Out Loud test in a day, launched it on Thursday and had participant videos to watch that day. Here’s a 1 minute 18 second clip.. The participant is trying to find a related course to the one he’s looking at.
Enemy #1 Agile: We can’t get users fast enough
#OneWebFestival
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We’ll skip over the yawn for now… Straight away we’ve learned that the navigation had the potential to be helpful but was too subtle and so possibly needs reconsidering. Testing needn’t be large scale. Depending on what we’re trying to find out, we could only need as few as 3 participants. There will be times when we need far more participants than this, from 50 upwards. The key is that we test only with necessary number of participants.
Enemy #1 Agile: We don’t have assets ready in time
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We don’t need to test with a final product. (image source: popularwoodworking.com)
Enemy #1 Agile: We don’t have assets ready in time
#OneWebFestival
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Testing is best done with early prototype versions of content. The reason being that you can catch usability issues before the design becomes more established, avoiding wasted efforts. A hand-drawn sketch could be all we need to use. We created this 404 ‘page’ as a JPEG image in 30 minutes using Photoshop, hosted it online and then tested it with UserZoom. (Image source: Amber Case on Flikr) (Image source: mockplus.com)
Enemy #1 Agile: We don’t have assets ready in time
#OneWebFestival
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Think Out Loud 404 page first draft.
Enemy #1 Agile: We don’t have assets ready in time
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click test True Intent surveys remote moderated tasks remote unmoderated tasks tree test card sort (image source: popularwoodworking.com)
THANK YOU & QUESTIONS
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That’s it. Enemies slain. Maybe soon we’ll rival Amazon for user experience.
